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Sunday, 7 November 2010

The National Military Command Center (NMCC) is the most secure part of the Pentagon and, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, was "the focal point within [the] Department of Defense for providing assistance" to law enforcement efforts in response to aircraft hijackings in U.S. airspace, according to military instructions. [1] In response to the attacks on New York and Washington, the job of the NMCC, according to the 9/11 Commission, was "to gather the relevant parties and establish the chain of command between the National Command Authority--the president and the secretary of defense--and those who need to carry out their orders." [2]

The NMCC therefore had a critical role to play that day. And yet evidence reveals that emergency actions conducted from the center were totally inadequate. Numerous obstructions occurred, including technical problems and outside agencies failing to provide the center with the information it required. Furthermore, a number of military leaders were particularly slow in reaching the NMCC, from where they could assist emergency response efforts, and only arrived there after the attacks ended and it was too late to make a difference.

The evidence currently available is insufficient to draw firm conclusions from. But the sheer number of factors that hindered the actions of those in the NMCC, combined with several oddities, raises the possibility that a deliberate and coordinated attempt was made by treasonous U.S. government and military insiders to sabotage the center's ability to respond to the 9/11 attacks, at a time when its rapid actions were imperative.

THE U.S. MILITARY'S 'WORLDWIDE NERVE CENTER'The NMCC has been described as "a communications hub, a switchboard connecting the Pentagon, the civilian government, and the combatant commanders." [3] It is a maze of offices, cubicles, and conference rooms in an area of the Pentagon where offices of the military's Joint Staff and many top officials, including the secretary of defense, are located. The center is designed to operate in an emergency, and has its own electrical, heating, and air-conditioning systems. [4]

The NMCC's primary task is to monitor worldwide events for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its other main missions are providing a strategic watch component and providing a crisis response component. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, it was operated by five teams on a rotating basis, with each operations team typically having 17 to 20 personnel on duty and performing a variety of functions. [5]

OFFICERS LACKED URGENCY IN RESPONSE TO FIRST CRASHThe morning of September 11, 2001, the NMCC was receiving live feeds from numerous television stations, which its personnel were monitoring, and those in the NMCC learned of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center from TV news reports. [6] This was reportedly the first time they learned anything of the crisis in the skies over America that morning. [7]

NMCC personnel supposedly didn't realize that the crash was a terrorist attack. Operations officer Dan Mangino has recalled, "At first, we thought it was a terrible accident." [8] Major Charles Chambers recalled, "My instinct was that the pilot had used the towers to point himself towards the area, lost consciousness, and autopilot had done the rest." Therefore, at that time, "Our interest in the crash ... was no different from anyone else's in the country." [9]

The operations team's response was to continue monitoring media reports and make notifications up the chain of command, simply telling senior Pentagon officials that a plane had crashed into one of the WTC towers. [10]

NMCC STAFF UNAWARE OF CRISIS TAKING PLACEThe Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) only informed the NMCC of the first hijacking on September 11--of American Airlines Flight 11--at about 9:00 a.m., 14 minutes after that plane hit the WTC and more than 45 minutes after it is supposed to have been hijacked. At that time, Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves, the senior operations officer in the NMCC, called the FAA operations center at the agency's Washington, DC, headquarters, seeking information on the crisis. The person that answered the call told Gonsalves that the FAA had a report of the hijacking of Flight 11, which was flying from Boston to Los Angeles. However, the FAA employee apparently did not realize this was the plane that had crashed into the WTC, and told Gonsalves that Flight 11 was "now en route" to JFK International Airport in New York. Furthermore, the FAA employee made no request for help from the military: There was no discussion of possibly scrambling fighter jets to go after the hijacked plane, and when Gonsalves asked if the FAA needed assistance dealing with the hijacking, he was told, "No," and that the pilot "had called in and said everything was under control, and he was going to land at New York shortly." [11]

According to military instructions, the NMCC should have been "notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA" in response to an aircraft hijacking in U.S. airspace. [12] And yet, as we can see, the NMCC learned of the hijacking of Flight 11 when it called the FAA, not vice-versa. The 9/11 Commission Report pointed out that although "FAA headquarters began to follow the hijack protocol" after air traffic controllers concluded that Flight 11 had been hijacked, at around 8:25 a.m., it "did not contact the NMCC to request a fighter escort." [13]

The NMCC's alarming lack of awareness of the crisis taking place that morning continued, as was apparent when the Pentagon was struck at 9:37 a.m. Captain Charles Leidig, who was temporarily in charge of operations in the NMCC during the terrorist attacks, told the 9/11 Commission that "he recalled his situational awareness on the Pentagon crash as being [caused by] an aircraft was from CNN." [14] Steve Hahn, an operations officer in the NMCC that morning, has recalled, "I didn't know [the Pentagon had been hit] until I heard the news report on television." [15] Charles Chambers said that when the Pentagon was hit (on the opposite side of the building to where the NMCC is located), he "heard a strange faint rattling noise through the air ducts and felt a slight vibration." However, he added, "I didn't hear or feel anything else so I didn't pay it much mind." He only realized the Pentagon had been attacked when he subsequently saw this being reported on TV. [16]

OFFICERS UNUSUALLY CALM IN RESPONSE TO ATTACKSNMCC personnel saw United Airlines Flight 175 hitting the South Tower of the World Trade Center live on television at 9:03 a.m. They then, reportedly, realized the nature of what was happening. Leidig has said that to him "it was obvious it was a terrorist attack or a coordinated attack." Dan Mangino recalled that the staff in the NMCC now "knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack." [17]

According to Leidig, the NMCC "then became a focal point for coordinating information flow." [18] And yet evidence suggests a level of urgency among those in the center far less than we might reasonably expect, considering this was the first attack on America in 60 years. Mangino has said that "he knew he would have little time in the days ahead, so he quickly ran to the concourse to get some money out of an automated teller machine." He only arrived back at the NMCC sometime after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. Would a military officer in such a key position really have popped out to get money from an ATM if he genuinely believed the U.S. was in the middle of a massive terrorist attack?

Even after the Pentagon was hit, personnel in the NMCC remained very calm. When Mangino arrived back at the center, he was reportedly "greeted by a sea of calm." He has recalled, "There was no panic, no raised voices." His colleague Steve Hahn similarly recalled that the atmosphere in the NMCC "was very professional and very calm." [19] And Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers has said that when he arrived at the NMCC, reportedly at around 10:00 a.m., "all the officers on duty were working calmly at their stations, despite the smoke wafting in through the ventilation system, the fact that the Pentagon had just been struck, and the distracting blast of the evacuation alarm." [20]

It is plausible that this calmness was simply an example of the professionalism of the NMCC personnel. As Mangino noted, "We train for emergencies all the time and that training took over." [21] But other evidence of the NMCC personnel's lack of urgency makes this possibility seem less likely. It is particularly notable that the man who should have been in charge of the center's response to the crisis was allowed to remain in a pre-scheduled meeting, unrelated to the attacks, and did not return to his post until more than an hour after the second WTC tower was hit.

NMCC DIRECTOR STAYED IN PRE-SCHEDULED MEETINGBrigadier General Montague Winfield should have been on duty as the deputy director for operations (DDO) in the NMCC throughout the 9/11 attacks, in command of the operations team there. [22] The DDO's responsibilities in a crisis include establishing and moderating an appropriate conference call between military commanders and other relevant agencies, and generating a military response. [23] But, curiously, the previous afternoon, Winfield asked his colleague, Charles Leidig, to take over from him as DDO for a portion of his duty on the morning of September 11, and Leidig agreed to do so.

Leidig--whose usual job was as the deputy for Command Center operations, responsible for the maintenance, operation, and training of the NMCC's watch teams--had joined the operations directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in July 2001, and only qualified to stand in as the DDO in the NMCC about a month before 9/11. He therefore lacked Winfield's experience that would surely have been invaluable when organizing a response to the attacks on the U.S. [24]

The reason Winfield wanted Leidig to take his place as DDO on September 11 appears to have been because he was scheduled to attend a meeting that morning. This was a "closed-door personnel meeting convened by the Air Force to discuss the rating of Air Force officers," according to one 9/11 Commission memorandum. [25] Another Commission memorandum described it as a "session for general officers who rated Air Force officers." Leidig therefore replaced Winfield as DDO at 8:30 a.m. on September 11, 16 minutes before the first plane hit the WTC. [26]

One would reasonably expect someone to have fetched Winfield from his meeting when the second plane hit the WTC and officers in the NMCC "knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack," if not before. [27] And yet that did not happen. Winfield only returned to his post more than an hour later, after Flight 93 apparently crashed in Pennsylvania and the 9/11 attacks had ended.

It is unclear if Winfield and the other officers with him in the meeting were informed immediately of the second attack. It is also unclear when exactly Winfield arrived back in the NMCC, and whether he then resumed his duties as DDO immediately, or instead allowed Leidig to continue in his place even while he was available to return to his post. Leidig told the 9/11 Commission he was "certain that Winfield returned" from the meeting "after the Pentagon was hit" at 9:37 a.m. [28] He also said Winfield took over from him as DDO "right after we resolved what was going on with United 93," meaning at some time after 10:03 a.m. Leidig added that a report over a conference call at 10:37 a.m., about an anonymous threat made against Air Force One, occurred "right after I was relieved on the watch by General Winfield." [29] This would suggest that Winfield returned to his post at around 10:30 a.m.

The closest the 9/11 Commission came to providing an explanation for Winfield avoiding his crucial responsibilities, and instead staying in an unimportant, pre-scheduled meeting, was to state in a memorandum that "such meetings" as Winfield was attending "are generally not disturbed unless the reason is significant." [30] But a major terrorist attack in the U.S. was highly significant. So why didn't Winfield immediately return to his post when the second WTC tower was hit? And why didn't anyone in the NMCC promptly fetch him from the meeting at that time?

Considering the countless oddities that have been identified around the military's response to the 9/11 attacks, we surely need to contemplate the possibility of a more sinister explanation for this apparent lack of urgency among those whose job it was to run the NMCC on September 11. For example, might their calmness have been because they thought the terrorist attacks were in fact simulated as part of a training exercise that morning, rather than being a genuine, real-world emergency? Under such circumstances, it would have been much easier for them to remain calm. It is possible that those in the NMCC could have thought the terrorist attacks were being simulated even when television footage clearly showed what was happening. For example, personnel at an Army base near New York that was conducting an antiterrorism training exercise that morning actually thought TV footage of the burning WTC was an elaborate training video accompanying their exercise. One worker told a training officer, "You really outdid yourself this time." [31]

EMERGENCY CONFERENCE ONLY BEGAN AT 9:29 A.M.Another area of concern is the serious problems experienced by NMCC personnel in convening and running an emergency teleconference to deal with the terrorist attacks. The NMCC had specific procedures in place to manage a crisis. A 9/11 Commission memorandum described, "As a particular event unfolds, the first action is to convene a significant event conference to gather and disseminate information from government entities according to established checklists." [32] However, Charles Chambers recalled that the NMCC's significant event conference in response to the 9/11 attacks "was taking much longer than expected to bring up." [33] Commander Patrick Gardner, the assistant DDO, told the 9/11 Commission that the NMCC was "struggling to build the conference," which "didn't get off as quickly as hoped," and complained of his "frustration that it wasn't brought up more quickly." [34] The significant event conference only began at 9:29 a.m., 26 minutes after Flight 175 hit the WTC. [35]

At least two factors that contributed to this alarming delay in establishing the conference have been identified: disruption resulting from some NMCC officers having to participate in another conference call that was reportedly of no use in aiding the emergency response to the attacks, and problems connecting some agencies--particularly the FAA--to the NMCC's conference.

UNHELPFUL CIA CONFERENCE DELAYED NMCC RESPONSEA National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officer Network (NOIWON) conference call was convened by the CIA, reportedly at sometime between 9:16 a.m. and 9:25 a.m. on September 11, to allow government agencies in the Washington area to quickly share information regarding the ongoing crisis. [36] But this call appears to have hindered, rather than helped, emergency response efforts. According to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, while the NMCC was preparing for the significant event conference, the "NOIWON call intervened. The NMCC abandoned its attempt to convene a [significant event conference] so its watch officers could participate in the NOIWON conference." [37]

What is more, the disruption was apparently for nothing. An intelligence officer working at FAA headquarters that morning said that he "does not remember any useful or significant information coming as a result of the NOIWON call." [38] And Charles Leidig told the 9/11 Commission that he "recalled no situational awareness that came from the NOIWON call." [39]

NMCC HAD PROBLEMS CONNECTING TO CIVIL AGENCIESAttempts to convene the significant event conference were also delayed because, as Charles Chambers recalled, "a couple of the civil agencies" that were going to be included in the conference "couldn't be reached, and others kept dropping off moments after connecting." [40] Leidig finally announced that the NMCC would have to start without those agencies, which could be added to the conference later on. [41]

The significant event conference was brought to an end after just five minutes, and resumed at 9:37 a.m. as an "air threat conference," which continued for over eight hours. [42] According to Chambers, air threat conferences are used when aircraft are considered hostile and involve many more people than are in a significant event conference. But, like the previous conference, "it took longer than expected" to convene the air threat conference. There were again problems connecting some agencies to it. Other agencies hadn't understood what Leidig meant about establishing a new conference, and so they didn't hang up when the previous conference call was disconnected. Therefore, Chambers recalled, "All we got from them was a busy signal." [43]

FAA OUT OF COMMUNICATIONConsidering the FAA's crucial responsibilities in responding to hijackings, it is of particular concern that there were serious problems connecting the agency to the NMCC's conference calls. According to military instructions, the FAA administrator had "exclusive responsibility to direct law enforcement activity related to actual or attempted aircraft piracy (hijacking) in the 'special aircraft jurisdiction' of the United States." [44] But when the FAA was asked to provide an update over the significant event conference right after it started, the line was silent. [45] Charles Leidig recalled that the FAA was only "intermittently in," and "most of the time they were not in the conference." He said the problems connecting the FAA to the conference, which occurred "throughout the morning ... hampered information flow to some degree." [46] Charles Chambers complained that because "the FAA wasn't in the conference, they couldn't go secure, and so we couldn't get first-hand information from them." [47]

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, although operators at the NMCC "worked feverishly to include the FAA" in the conference, they had "equipment problems and difficulty finding secure phone numbers." [48] Staff Sergeant Val Harrison, who was responsible for setting up the NMCC's conference calls, tried contacting the operations center at FAA headquarters so as to connect the agency to the air threat conference, but had difficulty getting through. She finally asked the White House switchboard to help her out, but even after a line with the FAA had been established, it was repeatedly lost. [49]

The explanations that have been put forward for these difficulties connecting the FAA to the conference have been vague at best. One 9/11 Commission memorandum attributed them simply to "technical problems." [50] Leidig told the 9/11 Commission it was his understanding that there had been some "compatibility issues" between the FAA's secure phone and the secure phones in the NMCC, though he said he was unaware of the technical aspects of the problem. [51] In light of the numerous other factors that disrupted the NMCC's emergency response that morning, it would be worth carefully investigating whether these problems were in fact the result of a deliberate attempt to sabotage communications between government agencies, so as to make sure the attacks on New York and Washington proceeded unhindered.

FAA REPRESENTATIVE LACKED RELEVANT KNOWLEDGEWhat is more, when an FAA representative finally joined the air threat conference, at 10:17 a.m., that person was far from adequate for providing the conference with the information it required. The representative was Rayford Brooks, who was working in the Central Altitude Reservation Function (CARF) at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia. Brooks was a most inappropriate person to have representing the FAA on the conference. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, he had "no familiarity with or responsibility for hijackings, no access to decisionmakers, and none of the information available to senior FAA officials."

Brooks only arrived at the Command Center at about 9:30 a.m. and had not been listening to the radio while driving there. As he told the 9/11 Commission, he had "no situational awareness." After arriving at the Command Center, Brooks was not given any instructions regarding the air threat conference or other operational matters. Brooks in fact should not have been on the conference in the first place. He had to join it in place of one of the military officers working in the Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC), a small office next to the CARF at the Command Center. According to Brooks, the ATSC asked the CARF to monitor the air threat conference on its behalf because it did not have a working secure phone. [52]

Considering the critical role the FAA was required to play in responding to aircraft hijackings, we could reasonably expect a far more knowledgeable FAA employee than Rayford Brooks to have been participating in the NMCC's conference when hijackings were actually taking place. With all the people working at the FAA's Command Center that morning, was there really no one more suitable available?

TOP OFFICIALS REACHED NMCC TOO LATE TO HELPWe can see that numerous factors hindered the actions of those in the NMCC in response to the 9/11 attacks. It is also worth noting that several key officials who should ideally have been in the NMCC while the attacks were taking place were absent from the center, and arrived there only when it was too late to make a difference:

• As already mentioned, Brigadier General Montague Winfield left his position as the deputy director for operations in the NMCC at 8:30 a.m. and only resumed his duties after the attacks ended, apparently around 10:30 a.m.

• Donald Rumsfeld, who as secretary of defense had a vital role to play in defending his country against the terrorist attacks, was at the Pentagon that morning, and yet he too only reached the NMCC after the attacks ended. Rumsfeld learned of the first attack in New York during a breakfast meeting he was holding for several members of Congress. He then returned to his office for his daily CIA intelligence briefing. [53] After the second plane hit the WTC, a couple of Rumsfeld's colleague's went and informed him of this and said that the crisis management process was starting up. But Rumsfeld supposedly "wanted to make a few phone calls," and so remained in his office. [54] After hearing and feeling the explosion when the Pentagon was hit, Rumsfeld still did not head to the NMCC. He instead went outside and helped carry an injured person on a stretcher. After returning to the building, he initially went back to his office. [55] He finally arrived at the NMCC and joined the air threat conference at around 10:30 a.m. [56] Lieutenant Colonel Robert Darling--who on September 11 served as a liaison between the White House Situation Room, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the NMCC--has stated the problem with Rumsfeld's actions that morning. Darling wrote: "I ... believe Secretary Rumsfeld's appointed place of duty was at the helm in the NMCC that day. ... The real questions still remain; why did Secretary Rumsfeld abandon his post that day by not responding to the National Military Command Center the moment the attack on our county was realized?" [57]

• General Henry Shelton, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. armed forces, had taken off at around 7:30 a.m. on a military aircraft, and was flying across the Atlantic for a NATO conference in Hungary when the terrorist attacks occurred. Shelton ordered that his plane turn around and return to Washington. [58] However, he only arrived at the NMCC at around 5:40 p.m. [59]

• General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was on Capitol Hill that morning and, despite seeing the coverage of the first crash in New York on television shortly before 9:00 a.m., continued into his scheduled meeting with Senator Max Cleland. [60] Myers learned of the second attack on the WTC either while he was with Cleland or just after he left the meeting (accounts conflict on this matter). [61] Some accounts indicate that Myers only left the Capitol building to return to the Pentagon around the time of the Pentagon attack. [62] Myers told the 9/11 Commission that he arrived at the NMCC at around 10:00 a.m. or 10:10 a.m. [63] But he further delayed joining the air threat conference by initially leaving the NMCC and heading out to the secretary of defense's office suite, in search of Donald Rumsfeld. Only after an aide there told him that Rumsfeld had gone outside did Myers return to the NMCC. [64]

• As director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice Admiral Scott Fry was "responsible for keeping the National Military Command Center operating," according to authors Patrick Creed and Rick Newman. [65] Despite being informed of the first plane hitting the WTC as he was about to leave his office in the Pentagon, Fry continued out to a 9:00 a.m. appointment with his dentist. He reportedly cut short that appointment promptly after his assistant called him on his cell phone when the second plane hit the WTC. But Fry then went not to the NMCC but to the Executive Support Center, located upstairs from it. [66] Fry is reported as having been in the NMCC later on that day, although the time he arrived there, and whether he participated in the air threat conference, is unstated. [67]

Any new investigation of 9/11 would need to determine the extent to which the absence of these key officials from the NMCC hindered the military's response to the attacks. In light of all the other suspicious evidence, it should be seriously considered whether the absence of any of these individuals had been pre-arranged as part of a deliberate attempt at paralyzing the U.S. military, to prevent it from stopping the attacks.

UNRELEASED EVIDENCE DETAILS NMCC'S ACTIONS ON 9/11We know of several records in existence that would reveal more about what happened in the NMCC on September 11, 2001, and these records would surely be of much use to any new investigations. They include an after action report produced by the NMCC, on its response to the 9/11 attacks, based on notes and other contemporaneous documents. [68] We also know the NMCC's air threat conference call was recorded, and the Pentagon produced a 200-page classified transcript from the recording. [69] Furthermore, a senior officer in the NMCC told the 9/11 Commission that he removed all the tapes from phones and other machines in the NMCC following the 9/11 attacks, and saved them in the DDO's cabinet. Presumably these tapes still exist. [70]

Even without access to important records like these, the limited evidence that is already available shows that an alarming number of factors hindered the emergency response to the 9/11 attacks that was being coordinated from within the NMCC. Considering the U.S. military's failure to stop those attacks, this is something of much concern. We need to know a lot more about what was going on in the NMCC on September 11. And serious attempts need to be made to determine whether deliberate and coordinated actions were undertaken by treasonous U.S. government and military insiders, to disrupt the efforts of the NMCC to put together an effective response to the attacks.